India consumes a whopping 150 crore gigabytes of mobile data a month, surpassing the consumption of the US and China put together. This makes India the world’s largest telecom market and internet economy to have a neutral and non-discriminatory internet. Particularly in light of this, and in times of the burgeoning politics of censorship, the US’ reversal of net neutrality (NN) laws is regressive and unfortunate.

The telecommunications industry’s evolution followed a similar trajectory in many parts of the world, including India. In India, we began with wireline services and wireless telephony was introduced in the early 1990s. Initially, an operator had to procure two separate licences to provide wireline and wireless services. Only later, a dual-licence regime permitted service providers to operate on a single licence for both these telephony services, with a separate licence for internet service providers.

India’s current unified licence regime permits the provision of all these services under one licence. This is merely one example of the evolution of a disruptive sector, where regulators often struggle to keep up with a constant spate of innovations and disruptions.

In the pre-NN era, the US was consuming vast amounts of data, but telcos had all the power. They had the prerogative to decide which services consumers could access on their networks and could charge Netflix and other over-the-top (OTT) platforms to upgrade their networks, with very little choice left to these platforms but to comply. Sure enough, regulators had to respond to these developments.

During the Barack Obama administration, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), with Tom Wheeler at the helm, established regulations for NN that came into effect in June 2015. In February 2016, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) ruled in favour of similar internet regulation prohibiting discriminatory practices by telcos.

Despite establishing NN at similar times, there are two key differences between India and the US. First, India was a pioneer and an early adopter. We rallied for NN well before telcos like Jio made an appearance and unleashed a data revolution in the country.

Denial-of-Service Attack Second, two successive governments with opposing parties at the helm were united in their advocacy for a fair and neutral internet and lent unanimous political support for the cause. In the US, a change in administration led to areversal of NN regulation.

This is not to say that internet regulation faced no opposition in India. When NN was being debated, telcos predictably argued that OTT platforms like WhatsApp were denting their revenues from text messages, while services like Skype were eating into revenues from long-distance voice calls. But NN still passed in India.

The telcos believe that since they have sustained the painstaking process of acquiring licences, building infrastructure, establishing a brand and market presence, and building a consumer base, they are entitled to make decisions about what is consumed on their network. While I understand their predicament, the notion that they can assume ownership of spectrum and its distribution is fallacious.

This is analogous to a private construction company claiming ownership of a highway that they have been licensed to build, charging toll fees and calling the shots on which vehicles can operate on the highway. In India, just as oil and gas explorers don’t own the natural resource they mine and extract, telcos don’t own the spectrum or distribution networks. It is the prerogative of the State and its citizens to decide which services can operate on these networks. Discrimination by telcos in the provision of internet services is not only illegal, but it’s simply not for them to decide.

Telcos opposing NN also get it wrong from a business model point of view. In the highway analogy, the less discriminatory your model is, the better it is for your business. Non-discriminatory distribution networks eventually generate demand for more highways and improved last-mile connectivity, resulting in more business.

In the long run, NN is favourable for all stakeholders: consumers, telcos, OTT platforms and the State. NN is not a zero-sum game.

There is a distinction to be made here between telecom services and those provided by companies like Apple. For instance, Apple offers proprietary OTT services such as iMessage and FaceTime to users of its products. They leverage their client base to provide services that are discriminatory.

But this is not an unethical practice because Apple isn’t a licensee of the government, and, thereby, isn’t answerable to the citizen body at large. By contrast, particularly in India, assets like oil, roadways and spectrum are owned entirely by the State. Operating companies are merely concessionaires and licensees of GoI.

Once Bot, Doesn’t Stay Bot This is precisely why the US’ revocation of NN laws is extremely regressive. Not only does it violate the principle of a fair and neutral internet, but it also sends mixed signals to entrepreneurs and investors: that a change in administration can result in the overturn of as important a policy as NN.

The US can do well to learn from the tenacity of Indian citizens and politicians in their advocacy for internet regulation. We are demonstrating consistency and coherence in policy, and an abiding commitment to the democratisation of services such as the internet. One would expect the US to display the same level of maturity.